Jonas Vingegaard has to this point minimised the impression of his horrible Itzulia Basque Nation crash in the course of the 2024 Tour de France, displaying spectacular kind after simply six weeks of coaching and limiting his losses to UAE Group Emirates’ Tadej Pogačar to simply 50 seconds.
On Thursday, Vingegaard and his Visma-Lease a Bike group navigated the flat stage to Dijon with obvious ease, ensuring they had been united and on the correct aspect of the cut up that fashioned in a quick second of crosswinds. Christophe Laporte and Matteo Jorgenson then escorted him to the end line, as Wout van Aert was given a quick second of freedom to contest the stage 6 dash.
It was a day of relative ease for Vingegaard. Nonetheless, Friday’s 25.3km particular person time trial by way of the Cote d’Or Bourgogne pink wine area of central France will probably be a real race of fact.
There will probably be no peloton for the Dane to cover in, no teammates to guard him. It is going to be Vingegaard towards the clock and towards race chief Pogačar, world time trial champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), Primož Roglič (Purple Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and all the opposite GC contenders.
All of Vingegaard’s rivals have accomplished pre-race reconnaissance rides of the time trial course, however his crash with the ensuing many weeks in hospital and rehabilitation left him no time to journey to the Cote d’Or to see the route.
Vingegaard confronted a doable night reconnaissance automotive journey on Thursday, or could wait till Friday morning for a experience when the course is closed.
“I have never seen the time trial course but, solely on video. I ought to have been there to do a recon of it however then I crashed and could not do it,” Vingegaard admitted to Biking Weekly after stage 6.
“I believe it is barely hilly, not so technical, however will probably be fairly a quick time trial I believe.”
Vingegaard begins his experience at 16:56 native time, 4 minutes behind Roglič. Behind the Dane, Evenepoel takes the course after which Pogačar, the ultimate rider on the course. It’s unclear how a lot Vingegaard has been capable of practice on his time trial bike after his punctured lung and fractured ribs at Itzulia Basque Nation in early April.
In 2023, Vingegaard arrange his general victory with a dominant efficiency within the hilly 22.4km Passy to Combloux time trial within the Alps. He gained 1:38 on Pogačar and three minutes on everybody else, earlier than Pogačar famously cracked on the next day’s stage to Courchevel.
This 12 months, the time trial tables have turned. Pogačar seems to have improved his time trialling and his tools, profitable the primary time trial within the Giro d’Italia and solely narrowly being defeated by Filippo Ganna within the second.
The final classification and Vingegaard’s general ambitions of a 3rd Tour victory may look very totally different on Friday.
“I believe usually Tadej is all the time doing fairly good time trials. So for positive he will probably be good, as will Remco,” Vingegaard predicted.
“I assume Remco would be the massive favorite. I am going to simply do my finest after which we must see what the end result will probably be.”
Get limitless entry to all of our protection of the Tour de France – together with breaking information and evaluation reported by our journalists on the bottom from each stage of the race because it occurs and extra. Discover out extra.
